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hamsters in freefall.
i am back in small town italy. the readjustment is not nearly so bad or jarring as it was in new york — let’s say, 0.375% as bad (which is bra’s population as a fraction of new york’s, just about). yes, back to old ladies staring, stray cats (and not stray rats), espresso delivered to the office, and not a decent ethnic eatery in sight. (speaking of which, i had my first indian restaurant experience in italy on friday, and the unspeakable horror of it shall remain undescribed. i’ve had better indian in st. louis, for chrissakes.)

anyway, i’ve been catching up on my european mtv, thanks to the recent installation of sky satellite in the place i’m staying. so there’s this awesome channel, mtv brand new, which is what mtv2 used to be (and mtv itself before that): all videos, all the time. and good ones, at that. no trashy pop and absolutely no shitty reality shows. not that i’ve seen, anyway. just yesterday, i saw videos from the mooney suzuki, the stills, the futureheads, massive attack, bright eyes, and mogwai, from which derives the title of this post. this last one, all done in animation for “hunted by a freak”, is truly disturbing, following this ugly, grub-like cretin as he goes to the pet store, examining the goods (who all cower — with good reason — under his squinty gaze). he picks up a turtle, fish, puppy — whatever strikes his fancy, and then goes up to the top of a very, very tall building, where he drops each. and of course, because mogwai must remain true to their indie rock selves, you’re to watch as they each plummet to their death. (they even tease you a bit by allowing the turtle to first fall onto an awning, but oh no, then he has to tumble safely onto the pavement, only to be crushed by an oncoming car. or the puppy being caught by a neon sign, only to be electrocuted.) and there are many, many clips of said hamster falling through the air. poor wee hamster. sick, sick mogwai.

i also saw that awesome video for bjork’s “who is it?” again. i think it was fred who first made me watch it. it’s beautiful and uplifting, and i laugh every time i see the end, where bjork drunkenly staggers off into the sunset in her little bell outfit, crazily ding-ing and dong-ing against her collar (you have to see it to understand what i mean) until she collapses on the field. love it. and i love that track.

ah, and i almost forgot to mention my new favorite single, lcd soundsystem’s “daft punk is playing at my house”, which, besides having an amazing title and totally rocking out, also comes packaged in a tiiiiight video (which beats out the current bifurcated state of video-making in which one either engineers a backwards-sequenced video to play forwards in lip-sync (see pharcyde, coldplay, jack johnson and everyfuckinbody else) or one has vocalist sing along under breath in video to own track as story plays out (see richard ashcroft and david bowie. maybe one is a riff off the other, cuz they’re almost identical, down to indulgent introspection, starting into mirrors and posh apartment settings). so anyway, there’s this link or this one (which worked better for me). par-tay!